Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Public Policy Polling killed recall numbers

Today, one of the more well-regarded organizations out there, Public Policy Polling, revealed it killed a poll it did last weekend when it found that voters in now-recalled Sen. Angela Giron's district supported her ouster by 12 percentage points.

"In a district that Barack Obama won by almost 20 points I figured there was no way that could be right and made a rare decision not to release the poll," writesTom Jensen from PPP. "It turns out we should have had more faith in our numbers becaue [sic] she was indeed recalled by 12 points.

"What's interesting about our poll is that it didn't find the gun control measures that drove the recall election to be that unpopular. Expanded background checks for gun buyers had 68/27 support among voters in the district, reflecting the overwhelming popularity for that we've found across the country. And voters were evenly divided on the law limiting high capacity ammunition magazines to 15 bullets, with 47% supporting and 47% opposing it. If voters were really making their recall votes based on those two laws, that doesn't point to recalling Giron by a 12 point margin."

The polling group also found that a large majority of the district held a favorable opinion of the National Rifle Association — which PPP thinks "won the messaging game" — and that, in a hypothetical race for governor, John Hickenlooper is tied with Tom Tancredo with 42 percent support.